Voyagers I

by Ben Bova

  “McDermott can’t swing that much weight,” Stoner said, sliding into the bed. The sheets were already warm from the press of their bodies.

  But Jo was on her feet, searching through the moonlit room for her scattered clothes.

  “What’re you doing?”

  “I brought an overnight bag with me,” she said, yanking on the jeans without bothering about the panties. “It’s in my car. I’ll be back in a minute.”

  She was still buttoning her blouse as she went out into the hall, heading for the stairs.

  Stoner yawned and wondered briefly how she knew so much about McDermott’s plans. Then he thought about the overnight bag. The cocky little bitch! He didn’t know whether to laugh or be angry. Yawning, he decided to do neither. He turned over on his side and drifted to sleep.

  * * *

  It is said that the freezing temperatures on planets like Jupiter or Saturn, in the outer Solar System, make all life there impossible. But these low temperatures do not apply to all portions of the planet. They refer only to the outermost cloud layers—the layers that are accessible to infrared telescopes that can measure temperatures. Indeed, if we had such a telescope in the vicinity of Jupiter and pointed it at Earth, we would deduce very low temperatures on Earth. We would be measuring the temperatures in the upper clouds and not on the much warmer surface of Earth.

  CARL SAGAN

  The Cosmic Connection

  Anchor Press/Doubleday

  1973

  * * *

  CHAPTER 9

  A cocktail party in official Washington has an inbred hierarchical cast to it. Senators usually outweigh congressmen, of course, but there are all sorts of gradations among both senators and congressmen. A committee chairman is obviously more important than a subcommittee chairman—most of the time. But what about a junior Republican who happens to be an attractive woman? What about a congressman’s aide who happens to be related to the governor of the congressman’s home state?

  Lieutenant Commander Tuttle was sensitive to the subtlest nuances of these parties. He knew that lieutenant commanders were slightly lower, in cocktail party echelons, than the average bartender. Still, much good work could be done at the right party if the lieutenant commander properly briefed his commanding officer. Besides, this party had a special extra dimension to it: the guest of honor was Willie Wilson, the Urban Evangelist who was the brand new “catch” of the young social season.

  The party was taking place in the old Sheraton-Park Hotel, still desperately trying to cling to its former elegance. The gilt decorations of the function room were worn thin, the old draperies dusty and frayed. But the rumor was that Wilson had arranged the party for himself and gotten a special low price from the hotel. The ostensible hostess had been dragooned into fronting for the Urban Evangelist.

  Tuttle’s post for the evening was in a corner of the ornate, gilded function room, dutifully chatting with the wife of his commanding admiral.

  “These parties are such a bore, don’t you think?” bellowed Mrs. Admiral O’Kelly. She held a heavy Bourbon on the rocks in one beringed hand and was fingering her rope of artificial pearls with the other.

  Tuttle nodded. He was in dress uniform and felt slightly stiff and foolish standing next to this old matron with her bluish hair piled high atop her wrinkled, sagging face. But the admiral’s orders had been firm: “Let me do the talking; you keep my wife supplied with drinks but don’t let her get drunk.”

  Not an easy task, thought Tuttle.

  The big room was only half filled with guests in tuxedos and evening gowns. Willie Wilson was the newest “in” subject of Washington society, but the Sheraton-Park was not an “in” hotel anymore.

  Still, the noise level was climbing to the point where you had to shout to make yourself heard by the person standing next to you. The admiral’s wife had no trouble with that: she had the voice of a Marine drill instructor.

  “Who is this Wilson, anyway?” she roared, leaning slightly toward Tuttle so she could yell directly into his ear. “Some preacher, isn’t he?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Tuttle answered, wincing. “He’s called the Urban Evangelist. His mission is to reach the people in the inner cities—the poor and disadvantaged.”

  “I saw him on television last week. He’s a good-looking rascal!”

  Across the room, Admiral O’Kelly was locked in earnest conversation with one of the President’s Whiz Kids.

  “My people over at Justice have picked up something that smells funny,” said the earnest young man from the White House. He wore a three-piece beige suit with an open-necked pastel green shirt. “Have you guys been pulling any fast ones up in New England?”

  Admiral O’Kelly let his impressive eyebrows rise. “Why, what on earth are you talking about, boy?”

  The Whiz Kid’s face went stiff with suppressed anger. “Don’t play games with me, Admiral. And I don’t have to be a hundred years old to know that something fishy is happening up there.”

  “It would help,” O’Kelly said, lowering his voice a notch and putting some iron into it, “if you told me what you’re referring to.”

  “Forcible abduction of a NASA scientist, that’s what I’m talking about! Ring a bell?”

  The admiral grinned at him, his face a leathery network of creases. “Can’t say that it does. Sure you’re not confusing my boys with CIA?”

  “There haven’t been any complaints,” the White House aide admitted, “so you’re in the clear—so far. But if I were you…”

  “Let’s put it this way, son.” O’Kelly laid a heavy hand on the young man’s shoulder. “If I were you, I’d pay attention to what’s in my In-basket. I’ve been trying to get the attention of you West Wing boys for the past ten days.”

  “You have?”

  “If you search diligently through your incoming memos, you’ll find three of ’em from me. Last one’s stamped Urgent and Top Secret. Dated three days ago. I thought sure you’d look at that one.”

  The Whiz Kid frowned. “I should have seen it…”

  “I suppose you get so many Urgent and Top Secret memos that they just pile up on your desk,” the admiral said, straight-faced.

  “Yeah. Well, okay…let’s get together, then. Tomorrow. I’ll phone you first thing in the morning.”

  The admiral nodded cheerfully. “Good. I think you’ll find what I have to tell you quite interesting. And important enough to bring to the President’s attention—without any further delays.”

  The young man from the White House nodded. Admiral O’Kelly turned his back on him and let the natural tides of the party pull them in opposite directions.

  That takes care of that target, O’Kelly told himself. One down and one to go.

  He glanced across the noisy room and saw that Tuttle, stubby and loyal as a bullterrier, was still standing resolutely beside his wife. Alma didn’t look too drunk. Still time to find Target Number Two.

  And there he was, gliding toward the bar like a well-oiled smiling insurance salesman. O’Kelly headed for the bar.

  Todd Nickerson had the bulbous red nose of a drunk. His eyes were always glazed over, even at important committee hearings and during vital votes on the floor of the House of Representatives. At parties he was loud, laughing, often lewd.

  But Nickerson was the key man on the House subcommittee that examined ONR’s budget every year. Not the subcommittee chairman. The chairman was an ancient party warhorse from Missouri whose only real interests were pork barrels and buxom black women.

  Despite being half drunk most of the time, Nickerson was the real power of the subcommittee. And O’Kelly had to make certain that the subcommittee would not rise up to haunt him once he had put Tuttle’s plan into action. The admiral elbowed his way through the crowd, stalking Nickerson like a submarine trailing an oil tanker.

  They made a funny pair, once they started talking to each other in the middle of the party. O’Kelly, all steel gray with his bushy brows and piercing eyes, his u
niform immaculate and pressed so well that the creases on his trousers could cut glass; Nickerson, weaving blearily, a tall, lank, alcoholic Ichabod Crane leaning over to hear what the stockier admiral had to say.

  “The National Radio Astronomy Observatory?” the congressman yelled. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

  Partygoers turned to stare, saw that it was Nickerson, and politely returned to their own conversations.

  O’Kelly, feeling the collar of his uniform rasp against his neck, took the civilian by the arm. “Now, don’t get crazy on me, Congressman. This is important. Very important. I’m not even certain that we can bring it up before the subcommittee; I’m afraid of leaks.”

  Nickerson focused his eyes on the admiral with an obvious effort. “Arecibo?” he asked, his voice lower. “That’s what you want? D’you know what kind of headlines it’d make if the Navy takes over a peaceful research facility?”

  “We already fund a large part of its operation,” O’Kelly reminded the congressman. “We only need it full time for a short while.”

  Nickerson waved his glass in the air, miraculously without spilling a drop or hitting any of the people standing nearby.

  “And what will the National Science Foundation do?” he demanded with a lopsided smile. “They’ll go running to the media, tha’s what they’ll do. They’ll start screaming that the good ol’ Navy’s screwing them outta the world’s biggest radio telescope.”

  “That’s why we need your support, Congressman. All of this must be done in utmost secrecy…”

  “Secrecy my ass! The media’ll make Golgotha look like a rehearsal. They’ll crucify the Navy in general and you in particular. Ready to hang on a cross? In public?”

  Suddenly O’Kelly looked as if he were on the bridge of a destroyer, charging into the enemy’s guns. “If I have to,” he answered firmly.

  Nickerson blinked, then stared at him, mouth hanging open stupidly. The party babbled around them: raucous laughter, shrill voices, smoke, a blur of colorful women’s gowns and men’s somber formal suits.

  “You’re serious,” Nickerson said at last.

  “You bet I am.”

  The glaze left Nickerson’s eyes. He was cold sober and alert. “Maybe you’d better tell me about it. In detail.”

  The admiral shook his head. “Not here.”

  “Outside then,” Nickerson said. “I doubt that the grounds are bugged.”

  By the time the admiral came to reclaim his wife, the party had wound down considerably. The room was emptying, the noise level was down to a subdued buzz of conversations.

  “Time for us to go, my dear,” Admiral O’Kelly said to his wife, taking the glass from her hand and putting it on the table next to him.

  “It’s been a dull party,” she said, slurring the words slightly.

  “I’m awfully sorry, sweetheart, but it was important for us to be here.” Turning toward Tuttle, “I was able to accomplish a couple of things that might have taken weeks, otherwise. Months, perhaps.”

  Tuttle beamed happily.

  “I shouldn’t have to go to boring parties,” Mrs. Admiral O’Kelly said as her husband led her by the hand. “I didn’t even get to meet the guest of honor.”

  “Some other time, dear. Some other time. Tuttle,” he said over his shoulder, “thanks for taking such good care of the missus.”

  “My pleasure, sir.”

  “I’ll see you in the office at oh-eight-thirty,” the admiral said, by way of good night.

  “Yes, sir!” Tuttle knew the admiral’s tone meant: mission accomplished.

  He felt exalted. He had won over the admiral to his plan and the admiral had taken on the White House and Congressman Nickerson. And won. The project was definitely go.

  Scanning the dwindling crowd, excitement bubbling within him, Tuttle saw Willie Wilson. The Urban Evangelist was shaking hands, wishing people well as they filed past him on their way out. He pumped the admiral’s hand, and then Mrs. O’Kelly’s. She smiled girlishly at him.

  “Thank you kindly, Admiral. The people of the inner city will appreciate your help and understanding.” Wilson turned to the next couple in the impromptu line, as an aide whispered behind him. “God bless you, Senator. Hope you win by a landslide next year…. Thanks for coming…. Good to see you….”

  Tuttle hung on the fringes of the dwindling crowd, practically bursting to tell somebody his Good News. It was Top Secret, of course, but he couldn’t keep all this excitement bottled up inside himself. Some of it had to come out.

  Finally Wilson noticed him. “Freddie, is that you in that fancy uniform?”

  “Hello, Will,” said Tuttle.

  The evangelist was in his trademark blue denim suit, with a white shirt and flowery bandana knotted at his throat. He was scarcely taller than Tuttle, and whippet thin. His face was bony, all angles. His hair was angelic golden blond; his eyes the cold gray of an Atlantic storm.

  “I haven’t laid eyes on you since—when was it, Freddie? Atlanta?”

  “New Orleans,” Tuttle corrected. “After the cops tried to break up your street meeting.”

  “Yes, I remember now. Two years ago. The Catholics were getting nervous in the service about me.”

  He’s had his teeth capped, Tuttle saw. I guess you have to when you do so much work on television.

  “I saw you over in Georgetown,” Tuttle said. “You pulled a good crowd.”

  “A high school gym,” Wilson replied. “That’s not much. Next time I come back to this town we’ll fill RFK Stadium.”

  “I hope you do.”

  “We’re getting bigger all the time.”

  “I know. People are starting to notice. Especially the TV spots. You put on a good show.”

  A small crowd was piling up at the doorway behind Tuttle, waiting to have their final word with the guest of honor. His aides fidgeted nervously and looked at their wristwatches.

  “Well, we’re trying,” Wilson said. “It’s a long, hard road.”

  “Yes, I guess it is.”

  “So why’s the Navy at my party? Who was that admiral just went by?”

  Tuttle laughed and heard himself say, “Maybe the Navy’s getting religion.”

  Wilson grinned back at him.

  “Something big is happening, Willie,” Tuttle whispered suddenly, uncontrollably. “Something so big that it’s going to blow everybody’s mind.”

  “What do you mean, Freddie?”

  Gesturing halfheartedly at the others milling around them, Tuttle whispered, “It’s too soon to say. But it’s big. Enormously big. As soon as we can verify that it’s really true, I’ll get word to you.”

  Wilson put on his best smile. “That’s fine, Freddie. But what’s it all about?”

  Shaking his head, Tuttle said, “You’ll know when I tell you. Nothing like it’s ever been seen before. All I can say is—watch the skies.”

  “Lord, you make it sound like the Second Coming.”

  “Maybe it is,” Tuttle answered, completely serious. “Maybe it is.”

  * * *

  But even if we encounter life on the other planets of this Sun, it seems most unlikely that we shall meet intelligence. The odds are fantastically against it; since the solar system is at least five thousand million years old, it is altogether unreasonable to expect that other rational beings will be sharing it with us at this very moment.

  To find our peers, or more likely our superiors, we must look to the stars. There are still some conservative scientists…who would deny that we can ever hope to span the interstellar gulf which light itself takes years to cross.

  This is nonsense. In the foreseeable future…we shall be able to build robot explorers that can head to the stars, as our present ones are heading to Mars and Venus. They will take years upon their journeys, but sooner or later one will bring back news that we are not alone.

  That news may also reach us, more swiftly and in richer detail, in the form of radio or other messages…. Even now, if it wa
s felt worthwhile, we could build a transmitter that could send signals to the nearest stars.

  ARTHUR C. CLARKE

  Voices from the Sky

  Harper & Row

  1965

  * * *

  CHAPTER 10

  Stoner pecked hesitantly at the computer keyboard. The typewriterlike terminal was perched shakily on the dining room table. The video screen readout unit sat next to it, flickering with pale green letters and symbols that danced across its screen. The dining room was littered with stacks of printout sheets and photographs. The entire side wall of the dining room was filled with bookshelves that Stoner had cobbled together out of boards and bricks, with the help of his security guards. Every shelf bulged with books.

  He didn’t have the house to himself, though.

  In addition to the brawny young Navy guards who patrolled the grounds and prowled periodically through the house, cluttering the kitchen and checking all the doors and windows, there was a growing stream of visitors from Washington and elsewhere taking up the big living room, next to the pool. Military men, most of them, with bundles of logistical plans in their briefcases. Stoner could hear them arguing, sometimes shouting at each other, through the thick sliding doors of the dining room. Arguments about food requirements and bedding, insurance tables and electronic spare parts.

  Stoner tried to avoid them as much as he could. They were welcome to the living room as long as they didn’t interfere with his work. He shut their brassy voices out of his mind and concentrated on tracking the orbit of the spacecraft, using the Big Eye photographs and the computer to analyze its path.

  It has to be a spacecraft, he kept telling himself. It can’t be a natural object.

  McDermott came to the house regularly, and not even the heaviest oaken doors could muffle the old man’s deep, booming voice. Tuttle was there often, as well, but the little lieutenant commander was too deeply engrossed in planning their move to say anything to a mere astrophysicist.